


glass bottomed ego

by dothemario



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Gee Sylvain How Come You Get All The Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Misunderstandings, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Suicidal Thoughts, Sylvix Week 2020 (Fire Emblem), no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:27:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26644465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dothemario/pseuds/dothemario
Summary: Miklan dies. Sylvain boils in his own pot of personal hell. Felix rides a horse.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 57
Collections: Sylvix Week 2020 Fic Collection





	glass bottomed ego

_Fucking pretty boy. You’re still scared of me? I’m gonna cut your fucking throat out, see how pretty you are then._

It could’ve been his imagination on any other day, a flashback of his childhood, a painful memory. Sylvain knew better, though; Miklan was here, he was real, and he was screaming, a garbled noise tinged with otherworldly unfamiliarity. The Professor took a step back, watching with the rest of the students as Miklan transformed into the reflection of his soul.

Yet, no matter the reality or the form, Miklan will always seek out his brother.

The beast was not fast, but he was ruthless; he batted away any student who stood in his path to Sylvain, paying no attention other than to parry their attacks.

It was a reckless path of action, but Sylvain wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. He always knew death was chasing his tail, and how hilarious is it that he would die at the hands of his brother? The one who failed to kill him all these years, finally capable and unrestrained in his true form. And Sylvain, finally broken beyond repair and too far resigned to care.

Still, Sylvain couldn’t seem to die. 

He stood over Miklan’s mangled corpse, slowly becoming human again, scales receding from the lance driven through his chest. The creep of blood pooled around Sylvain’s shoes.

It was pitiful. He was pitiful. Even in death his face was contorted in rage, the inhuman look that Sylvain somehow mistook as human all these years. 

_He was a human,_ Sylvain remembered. _He made this choice._

The pain was immediate and blinding, his heart ballooning in his chest and ridding him of air. Sylvain fell to his knees, shaky hands clutching at his knees. Normally, Sylvain keeps these attacks of paranoia to himself, but he _did_ just kill his brother. His pain was bared for everyone to see.

He’ll never understand, and he will never come close to an answer, will he? Is this as close to a reparation as he gets? To decimate the love he could’ve been granted in another life? If he had been better?

_It’s what I deserve._

So fucking stupid, and angry. So _fucking_ stupid and fucking angry and— 

A warm hand held his wrist in a crushing vice grip. Sylvain had raised his arm to strike without realizing. Exactly what? It’s hard to tell. 

Another hand placed on his shoulder, apprehensive, but gentle.

 _It’s done,_ Felix uttered. _Let’s go home._

Sylvain wakes up.

\---

“Sylvain. Please let us in.”

He was flat on his back, on the floor, palms facing the high ceiling. He had been counting the nails in the wooden beams. 

“Sylvain.”

There are one hundred fifty two. Twenty four of them are chipped.

“Open the door _now_ , or His Royal Highness is stomping your door down.”

Sylvain groans, slaps his cheeks, and answers the door.

“What’s up? Missed my face?” His grin is nauseating.

Ingrid and Dimitri do not return it. As they step inside, Ingrid casts a wary look in his direction. Dimitri is holding a plate of food. 

“You could say that. We’re worried about you, Syl,” Ingrid sits down on his bed. “We haven’t seen you since...it happened. You weren’t in any of your classes.”

“I’m never in my classes; if you haven’t noticed that yet, that means I’m _way_ sneakier than I thought—”

“Sylvain.” Dimitri speaks for the first time.

The laughing trails off a little too late to be comfortable. Sylvain, who now sits on the floor, looks up into the two stern faces staring down at him. 

“Please stop pretending. We know this isn’t really you.”

 _Oh, the irony._ Sylvain can’t help but laugh again at that. He counts the number of Sylvains he’s suited himself up in over the years. 

Dimitri is right: Sylvain’s _‘keeping it together, but not actually keeping it together, but actually_ really _not keeping it together’_ persona was one he hadn’t yet met.

“Not really me? Do I have a twin running around? Sorry buddy, but I just killed off the only sibling I had. If there were any more, I’d probably kill them too!” 

Sylvain laughed every word, his mask slipping just a tad. Ingrid and Dimitri looked at him as if he were a corpse.

Okay, time to wrap this up.

“Sorry guys,” he heaves a sigh, “...yeah, you’re right. I’m not okay. I’m really grateful you guys checked in on me, but I think I just need some space right now.” He tops it off with a weary, sad smile.

It almost takes the cake. However, the two stay staring down at him, brows furrowed with worry. Sylvain hopes they will just say their piece and get out.

“That’s just not going to cut it this time, Sylvain.” Ingrid leaves the bed and sits down on the floor next to him, placing her hand just shy of his own. Dimitri spots the initiative and squats down as well. He makes a halfhearted attempt to brandish the plate of food at Sylvain, but he’s busy glaring out the window.

Will they just fucking _leave?_ Sylvain starts to get angry, but something else is climbing up and out of the depths of his heart: fear.

Sylvain has his own special brand of self-destruction, outside of the common methods. He likes to lie. A _lot._ In fact, he doesn’t ever _stop_ lying, to the point that he has begun to lie to himself. Tricking himself into being functional gets easier and easier with every passing day, and if it weren’t for the soul crushing lows of reality, he could live like this forever. Or, at least until he can’t take it anymore.

Somehow, he’s not afraid of death, possibly because his many encounters with it have made them fond acquaintances. At times, he deepens their friendship, intensifying his physical and emotional pain by his own hand, inching himself closer and closer. 

He’s sitting on his porch, not quite on the doorstep. The recent incident with Miklan is giving him the courage to knock.

But he tells himself and others that it isn’t like that at all. Life is going swimmingly as a carefree philanderer, he is dancing through life, he is free as a bird. 

_Just one more try. Then they’ll leave, right? And you won’t have to lie anymore._

“Okay, I get it. You guys are gonna stick with me until I feel better yadda yadda. But I really don’t want to talk to anyone right now.” 

It unintentionally comes out like a bite. It’s actually a little true; if he has to keep this up he will surely turn inside out. 

Bingo! Ingrid and Dimitri exchange looks before each giving him a deep hug. It sears. It burns. He does not want to be touched, he doesn’t deserve to be touched, not like this.

“Come to my room if you feel up to talking, anytime. Night or day.” Dimitri’s words beckon to him.

_He’s lying._

“The same goes for me. I’m going to check on you in the morning, whether you like it or not, okay?”

_Don’t let her in. You’re burdening her._

Sylvain purses his lips in a tired smile. “Yeah, okay. I’ll be up and at it soon, I swear. I’ll see you guys tomorrow for sure.”

The room is now empty like a promise. Sylvain lies back on the floor. 

His bed is unmade for the first time since he arrived at Garreg Mach.

This time, he will count the wooden panels.

\---

One loud knock, more like the side of a fist slamming on the door.

“Open the door.”

This was going to be exhausting. 

Being disingenuous to Felix is one of the hardest things Sylvain has to do, yet he does it every day. It’s tiring because of three things:

One. Felix knows he is being dishonest, somehow, some way, every fucking time.

Two. Felix doesn’t know when to quit. He will pester and push until Sylvain snaps. Or, at least until Sylvain pushes back, harder. He hasn’t snapped yet.

Three. Sylvain is in love with Felix. Felix is the most important person in his life. He loves him so, so much. He loves him more than he hates anything else. Except for himself. He’s working on that. No, he isn’t.

Sylvain’s anxiety is comparable to the level of a performer in the wings, seconds from their first appearance in front of a crowd. It always feels like this, when he’s around Felix. He could say something wrong, he thinks every time, something wrong enough to get Felix to give up on him forever.

The stage is set perfectly for such a thing today: Sylvain is at an all time low, and Felix seems to have resorted to kicking.

“Fe! It’s the middle of the night, if you keep coming here at this time I might start to get some ideas…”

Felix elbows past him, beelining to the bed. He slaps his hand on the disheveled comforter, his charming way of saying ‘ _Sit down. Now.’_

So Sylvain does. Their shoulders touch, and Sylvain’s heart is screaming, as if any physical contact would allow Felix access to what’s inside of him. 

If that doesn’t do it, Sylvain is positive that eye contact unlocks everything. Felix’s eyes bore holes through his head. Sylvain finds the idea of it pleasant: if his brain leaks out of his skull, he doesn’t have to find the words to explain. Felix would just have to talk to the floor.

It’s just a little funny, and Sylvain exhales in amusement. Felix’s stare digs deeper. They sit like this for too long, Sylvain looking everywhere but at Felix.

“So...what’s up? You come here for something?” Sylvain tries to playfully wiggle his eyebrows. It is more like a grimace.

Felix doesn’t speak. His fingers claw at his thighs, wrinkling the fabric of his pants. Sylvain catches a glint of blood on his lip, where he’s biting down on it ceaselessly. 

Sylvain thinks he knows why Felix is here; it’s the same reason as Ingrid and Dimitri, the duty and obligation that comes with the promise of friendship. It’s a formality, and it’s immobilizing, sitting staring at someone and not knowing what to do or say, and it happens every time Sylvain gets a little upset. Doesn’t stop them from knocking, though.

He can’t suffocate, however, the childish hope crying out from his heart, that maybe Felix really cares about _him_ , the real him, and that he truly wants to help him escape this pit. 

That maybe, just maybe, Felix loves him. 

The thought of that word alone is enough to strangle and silence that hope. To entertain that possibility is suicide, and not the kind Sylvain often found himself thinking about. If Felix were to prove Sylvain’s vapid fantasy wrong, it would be worse than death.

While Sylvain is bound tight in his thoughts, the worst possible thing happens.

Without a word, Felix wraps his arms around Sylvain in a tight embrace, and hope awakens. It gasps for air.

For a few moments, Sylvain allows himself to enjoy it. Felix is warm, and his grip is comforting, and his breaths are hot against his neck. He allows himself to squeeze back, his muscles tensing from how tightly he presses him against his chest. He even lets himself tangle his fingers in his hair, let down in preparation for sleep. It’s wonderful, it’s better than he could have ever dreamed, _he’s_ wonderful— 

Time’s up. Felix’s hands begin to brand his back, and his silky hair grows thorns.

Sylvain crawls backwards toward his headboard, and sits. He cannot breathe.

_You do not deserve this. You do not deserve him._

“Jeez, what’s gotten into you, Fe?” Sylvain guffaws. “It’s not like you to be mushy like this.”

The look of dejection in Felix’s eyes pierces straight through his heart.

_You do not deserve anything._

_\---_

When Felix was ten, Sylvain fell off a balcony and broke his leg.

Before that, Sylvain had fallen down a well, run into a pole, gotten stomped on by a horse, and nearly drowned. You name it, it definitely happened to him. The Margrave never ran out of explanations for Sylvain’s newest injuries.

Felix thought that after Miklan was banished, after Sylvain enrolled at Garreg Mach, that he would stop getting hurt. To his bemusement, Sylvain kept getting hurt, just in different ways. He was now orchestrating all of his own pain.

Felix worried about him. Felix has worried about Sylvain every day since they met. However, where young Felix came running with eyes glistening and pudgy hands flailing, present day Felix snarled things he would just as soon regret, and his hands only found solace in the swords they held.

As a result, Felix was angry all the time.

He was angry for reasons other than Sylvain, of course. Angry at his father’s foolish devotion to chivalry and his country. Angry at the artifice of His Highness, and the smothering apologies it entailed. Angry at himself for always lacking the power to do anything about everything. 

The latter was especially poignant today. Today, Felix tried to do something, and it failed miserably.

Sylvain, wide eyed with terror, pushing himself out of Felix’s arms. That’s an image he’ll have to live with for...forever, probably. 

Sylvain had made it worse with one of his trademark salacious comments.

“You know I’m not good with words,” Felix turned away, hands balling into fists in his lap. “So yeah.”

With the bellowing laughter that followed, Sylvain almost seemed like his usual self, the smiley and sardonic self that liked to tease Felix until he bit. Felix hated this Sylvain.

But yesterday, Felix watched as Sylvain drove his lance clean through his brother, the bloodied end plunging out of his back. He was not fine, just intent on pretending he was. 

“You weren’t in class. You weren’t in training. What have you been doing all day?”

Sylvain clasped his hands behind his head. “Ah, you know, just sleeping all this stuff off. Might have had a lady in here. Or two.” He winked.

What a fucking pain. It was enough to give Felix the courage to swing his legs up from the side of the bed, and sit directly in front of Sylvain.

“If you lie to me one more time, I’m leaving.” 

There was an immediate change in Sylvain’s expression, in his glazed eyes, almost indiscernible. For the first time that night, he willingly met Felix’s gaze.

“Then leave.”

His next heartbeat thumped a little too hard at that, closing up his throat. Felix opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came. 

To anyone else, Sylvain’s expression was one that was challenging, intense. Felix knew it was the look of someone who was giving up. Someone who was exhausted. 

Felix decided to append his statement.

“Forever.”

For just a second, Sylvain’s facade slipped, and Felix caught a glimpse of _his_ Sylvain; the Sylvain who was terrified, eyes wide like a lost child. 

The moment was gone, but there were fissures, cracking away at the glass person sitting in front of him. Felix knew Sylvain’s methods of self-isolation too well: after getting past his first line of defense, the second one, ruthless and cruel, wass ready to push him away by any means necessary.

“Why would you even come here?” Sylvain muttered, mouth curled in a resigned sneer, “I don’t want to talk to anyone. I don’t want to talk to you.”

Each word stung, but Felix pressed on. He knew he was getting somewhere, and once he broke through, once he got Sylvain to _listen_ , it would all click into place.

That is, if Sylvain really did care. Felix was gambling on that. 

“I don’t care what you want to or don’t want to do. You have to talk at some point. You can’t bottle this crap up.”

Sylvain barked a laugh, a desperate, angry sound that twisted Felix’s stomach. “Try me. I’m _amazing_ at bottling things up.”

It was all so fucking _confusing_ , the way Sylvain built walls that towered around him, ones that Felix could barely scale. He felt like he could never truly understand the way Sylvain thinks, or the way he dealt with his trauma. Maybe Sylvain didn’t even understand himself.

Then again, Sylvain couldn’t understand the way Felix thought either, but what differed is that he understood how to get through to him. No matter what Felix said, as hurtful as it could be, Sylvain would stand as sturdy as a tree and take it, as he always did. Sylvain knew how to help Felix, how to see through his spiny exterior and nourish the wounded soul inside. He did this every time, every single time Felix was upset, and he was successful. Because of him, Felix felt loved.

And oh, how Felix loved him.

Sylvain never made Felix feel like he owed him his time, his attention, anything, despite him devoting all of the above. He would bring Felix dinner when he was out late at the training grounds, piling what was likely his own portion of meat on the plate so Felix would have double. He would keep Felix company by talking his ear off in the infirmary if he was injured in battle. He would stay up all night in his room, listening, accepting.

Maybe it didn’t mean a thing to Sylvain, but to Felix it meant the world. Sylvain was the world. 

“Sylvain.”

Felix’s voice was quiet, controlled. Sylvain looked up at him, and he seemed a bit nervous. Felix put a hand on his cheek.

“Please. You can trust me. I promise.”

Felix keeps all of his promises. Sylvain knew that. Without warning, tears were streaming silently down his face. He might not have been aware of it, because he was still smiling. Felix had done it, and he felt a wave of relief rush over him.

But the smile didn’t go away. It stayed plastered on Sylvain’s face, stark under the tumble of tears. 

“Get out.” 

He was still smiling. 

Felix’s mind went blank. “...What?”

“Get out.” Where the first time was a whisper, this was a statement. Sylvain was staring up at the ceiling.

Felix stared. He stared so long that his eyes ran dry. 

“Please don’t make me say it again, Felix,” Sylvain murmured.

At the utterance of his own name, Felix’s eyes went from bone dry to very, _very_ wet. His eyes welled up and he couldn’t raise his hand fast enough to keep them from overflowing. 

For the first time in five years, Felix was crying, and he was crying hard. If he weren’t so confused, he would have found this pretty funny. 

Once he realized he was crying, Felix had thrust his head in the opposite direction. He tried to take a deep breath, but the sigh he let out was twinged with a pitiful cry. _Dammit_.

“...Felix?” Sylvain was catching on, sitting up from his stupor. He didn’t look as dazed. 

Through clamped lips, Felix managed a hum in response, before he stood and headed for the door. He was two steps in before Sylvain's hand reached out and grabbed his wrist, turning him around.

“F-Felix, you’re crying. Fuck. Fuck. Goddess, I’m so _fucking_ worthless—”

“ _Stop._ ” 

Felix didn’t mean for it to come out as a yell, but his tears were scalding his face, boiling up in what was now anger. He wanted it all to stop, from the sobbing to Sylvain’s hateful babbling. 

“I’m trying so fucking hard to just get through to you, to get you to listen to _anything_ , a-and then I think I’m getting somewhere, and then y-you tell me to _leave_ and you keep _hating_ yourself like t-this…”

Felix was rambling, going off this stream of thoughts, but it was all he could do through his sobs.

Sylvain looked like a lost puppy. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just couldn’t...I don’t know how—”

“ _Didn’t mean to hurt me?_ Am I just a statue to you, your crap just bouncing off me all the time? Your deflecting hurts Sylvain. It hurts a whole fucking lot.”

He couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out of his mouth, each one bouncing off the walls. Sylvain had turned around to sit back on his bed, hunching over his knees.

“You and your stupid self-destruction, I can’t _stand_ it...the way you set yourself up to fail every single day. Like you don’t want yourself to ever be happy. Why can’t you let yourself be happy? I want you to be happy.” 

Sylvain looked up.

“You want me to be happy?” 

Sylvain’s voice was quiet, small. He looked small. 

Felix took a chance.

“Yes. I want you to be happy. I want it more than anything else.”

It echoed in his brain, and he couldn’t help the creep of embarrassment in his cheeks.

It was completely honest. He was loyal to the people he loved, and he loved Sylvain the most. Felix wanted Sylvain to be happy, no matter the cost. He would wait every day for him until he was ready to talk. He would follow Sylvain to the ends of the world if it was what he wanted. Felix was sure there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do, or be, if it meant making Sylvain happy.

There is one thing, however. Felix would never let himself be another warm body for Sylvain to seek hell in.

He realizes this when Sylvain starts kissing him.

His lips feel about how Felix expected. Soft, pliant, all of those romantic descriptors he’d shamefully piled in his head on the days he let himself wonder. Felix’s lips felt cold where Sylvain had slipped over them, their absence leaving his open to the air. His lap was firm with muscle, having pulled Felix down onto it.

The euphoria was about average, and didn’t last long before realization hit. Felix breaks away. He has never felt this empty before.

The anxious terror followed immediately, spilling through the chasm. His vision blurring, Felix stands shakily, and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand.

Sylvain is maniacal.

“Felix, I’m so sorry, I-I’m sorry, please— _fuck_ —I’m so s-sorry…”

Felix could not hear Sylvain’s babbling, his ears were filled with the deafening ringing that precedes uncontrollable sobbing. The tears were halfway up his throat.

Ouch. It fucking hurts. _It shouldn’t hurt this much,_ he thinks, but it should. And it does.

Felix would be anything for Sylvain. But not that. However, it seems that’s exactly what Sylvain wants, _needs_ him to be. Possibly, this is what Felix was to him all along.

Fuck. Goddess _fuck_ , the pain. It grips his heart and squeezes.

The combination of his devotion not just being unrequited, but laughed off the stage, his foolishness abundant and centered, with the realization that Sylvain hates himself deeply enough to crush his closest relationships beneath his boot...then again, it seems they were not very close after all.

It is too late, and Felix’s resilience is shattered. He needs to leave, and he does.

“I’m sorry, Sylvain.” 

His heart was ground into sand, but he did not yell. He wasn’t angry. Still, the line was crossed, and Felix needed to help himself first, before he passed out. As much as it hurt to leave Sylvain like this, staying would only hurt him more, and, from what he just learned, hurt Sylvain too.

“I...I want to help you, but...I can’t be that. Them. One of them. I’m sorry.”

Those last two words were mumbled, breathless from the wracking anxiety bubbling in his chest. Sylvain is looking at him with an expression he hasn’t yet seen, and he doesn’t know what it means, and he isn’t staying to find out.

“Wait. Wait. Don’t leave, I— _Felix_ I didn’t...please _don’t_ —” 

_You should be mad. Get mad. Why aren’t you mad?_

Standing in the doorway, Felix risks a look at Sylvain. 

Sylvain doesn’t speak. His elbows are on his knees, and he stares at the wall with glassy eyes, blank.

Felix runs. 

Not to his room, which shares a wall with Sylvain. Not to Ingrid’s, or Annette’s. If Felix is going to fucking cry again, he is going to do it alone.

Hand clamped over his mouth, he falls to his knees in the middle of the courtyard. The grass is wet. His hands and knees are soaked and stained green. 

How foolish he was, to believe he was more than who he was, and that Sylvain saw that in him. Felix splays on his back, lets his tears stream into the mud, lets his sobs call out to the moon. For someone who hasn’t cried in years, twice in one night was laudable. His palms face the sky. 

There are no stars.

\---

An hour after Felix leaves, Sylvain runs out of space on his forearms.

\---

A week later, Felix scoots his uneaten chicken around his plate with a fork. Sylvain has been gone for three and a half days.

The last person who had seen him was Mercedes.

“I brought him a few muffins, but he seemed very off,” she says conversationally, twirling her fork absentmindedly. “I sat with him for a long time, but he only spoke once.”

“What did he say?” Ashe leans in.

The Blue Lions sat in rapt silence awaiting her answer, but Mercedes just smiled warmly.

“I don’t think it’s my place to tell you that.”

“Mercedes, please,” Dimitri sounded pained. “It could be a clue to where he went. Any information is of utmost importance—”

“It wasn’t anything of the sort,” she interjected coolly. “You can trust me on that. It didn’t make very much sense either way.”

Everyone at the table slumped, save for Dedue. “We have already searched the entire monastery, and it is not a part of the Knights’ duty to search for missing students. It’s time we studied other options as to where Sylvain went.”

“Maybe he went back home, to Gautier Territory!” Annette blurts.

“He wouldn’t, he hates that place. If anything, he’s off hiding in the woods.”

“Why would he be in the woods? It’s more likely—”

Felix slammed his fist on the table, causing the silverware to dance. All eyes were on him as he stood from the table, uneaten plate of dinner in his hands.

“Stop your stupid arguing. You’re not helping anyone.”

The disappearance without a trace, save for something only Mercedes was allowed to hear. The Knights’ blind commitment to the church, not batting an eye when students vanish. The arguments and suggestions his house spoke in circles.

The way Felix abandoned Sylvain that night, and fucked everything up. 

It was all too much to bear, and Felix didn’t know how to bear it.

Somehow, his feet took him to Sylvain’s unlocked dormitory. 

All of his belongings remained, but were neatly tucked away, floor swept and bed made, because Goddess forbid Sylvain dropped off the face of the world and left someone else to clean up his mess. 

Felix looked around the room, sat down cross-legged in the middle of the floor, and ate his dinner.

He wanted to believe that Sylvain had a divine realization after what had transpired between the two of them, and had left the monastery to start anew and do the right things for himself. However, he knew better than to let himself fixate on a pipe dream. He knew that Sylvain was off pursuing malinformed decisions, destroying himself until he saw his punishment as fulfilled. 

It was selfish, and it was wrong, and it was Sylvain. It was _so_ Sylvain. The day Annette knocked on his door to tell him the news, he wasn’t surprised in the slightest. It did not change how anxious he was for his return.

He shoveled meat into his mouth, and estimated about five more days until Sylvain came back from gallivanting, fresh faced from an erased week.

Then he saw Sylvain’s bag under his desk. 

The implication made Felix panic, his heart racing too fast for him to handle. Letting his plate clatter to the floor, he scrambled over and undid the buckle of the front flap. 

Water flask. Reading glasses. Jacket. Medication. Everything was in it’s right place, save for one thing: his dagger, the one Ingrid gave him on his thirteenth birthday.

Sylvain had left the monastery to die.

\---

Even as a child, Sylvain has always excelled in what he does. He started reading at age two, and his mother gifted him with all the storybooks he never asked for. He had no trouble making friends, and he was a master at smooth-talking his way out of a rough spot. In school, academics came to him easily, and he wasn’t too bad at sparring. Girls often told him he was great at one thing in particular.

After Miklan’s bouts of jealousy became one too many, Sylvain gave up. He repeated a grade of school when he was twelve. He recreated himself in all of the qualities his friends despised. Instead of training, he sat in his room and stared at the wall. And just about everyone in the world knows about the ways he messed up with women.

Sylvain’s greatest talent now was breaking promises.

Promises of devotion to flings of yesterday, promises of making an effort in school, promises of changing, caring for himself and others, you name it. He breaks all of them, and does not risk a backward glance, fearful that if he dwells too long, he will drown.

He sits down in a field of poppies, which spread to the foot of the mountain range that divides Gautier territory from Sreng. This is where he and Felix would sneak off to when the adults were talking, running and falling fast enough to scrape their knees, twirling crumpled flowers into each others’ hair, tying vows on their pinky fingers.

Felix.

The dagger is heavy, but the weight is comforting.

There is one promise left to break.

\---

Felix steals Sylvain’s horse and is gone long before sundown.

Planning ahead is the Professor’s job, and as a result, Felix does not have a plan. As he gallops away on Buttercup (such a _stupid_ name for a horse), he tabs through his options:

One. Ride into Fhirdiad with the slim hope that the marketplace is still open, and ask the residents if they’d seen a shock of red hair recently.

Two. Tell Sylvain’s dad. Actually, that is definitely not an option. That is the stupidest idea Felix has ever had in his eighteen years. Mental strikethrough.

Three. Assume that the world revolves around himself, and go to the poppy field at the foot of the Sreng mountain range.

Felix was half sure that _someplace_ in Fhirdiad would be open, but he knew Sylvain was not careless about acting careless. Sylvain was good at hiding, and not leaving traces.

The sun raced him, bobbing up and down behind the hills of Charon, daring Felix to fall behind. He was reminded how cold the winds were on Faerghus nights. He was running out of time to decide.

Felix impulsively pulls on Buttercup’s reins, and the two skid to a halt. The sky is endless.

He looks down the horizon and can make out the characteristic steeples of Fhirdiad. The deep sunlight stings Felix’s eyes as he looks beyond the capital. 

The Sreng mountain range is blurry, but it’s there. It always has been, and it seemed to be waiting patiently.

Felix has never been patient, and he did not have the time to be. However, time seemed to slow now that he was sure of himself.

Felix and the horse follow the sun.

\---

Is he supposed to point it at his throat? That seems too fruity. His heart? Isn’t his sternum in the way or something? As much as Sylvain had thought about this moment, orchestrating every act leading up to it, he didn’t know much about the actual deed. Surprising, considering his part-time job is killing people.

As he turns the dagger over and over in his hands, his palms grow clammier, his saliva hot and coating his mouth. His heartbeat echoed off the mountains. It was happening. It was really happening. The mania was suffocating.

As melodramatic as he was, Sylvain did not want to think about anything when he died, and he did not want anyone to think about him. He didn’t even leave a note. But as much as he tried to clear his mind, a child kept calling out in his mind:

_We will be together forever, to the very end. We’ll even die together, right, Sylvain? Promise?_

_No,_ Sylvain smiled, looking up into the evening sun. A tear fell on his shoulder. _I’m sorry._

The child screamed his name, over and over and over again, with each call another tear welling up and racing down Sylvain’s cheek. They mixed with beads of sweat. The screams only grew louder.

It was not until he raised the dagger that he realized the screams were coming from not a child, but a man. And they were very loud, and very close.

Just below the sun, where the sky kissed the horizon, was a horse, and on top of the horse was a person. 

When the rider’s face came into view, golden in the setting sun, Sylvain sighed with relief. He was sure he was already dead. That was easier than he expected. 

This was the case until the rider called out a last time, two sentences this time, rather than a name. It was profound enough to pull Sylvain out of his lull, to his feet, and into a frenzied sprint toward the man and the horse.

“You fucking idiot! You forgot your bag.”

\---

_Mercedes, do you ever think about things you lost?_

_No, not particularly. I always find them in the end._

_\---_

Felix felt like one of the sops from Ashe’s books when Sylvain swept him off of Buttercup, and into his arms. He didn’t mind. 

Sylvain held onto him for a while, tears staining Felix’s coat. They swayed back and forth, letting the breeze walk them to the center of the field. At last, Sylvain let his arms fall, but held Felix’s hands tightly in his own. The setting sun painted a perfect picture.

“You came, you really came...Felix, you’re really here with me?”

It was hard to decipher through the sniffles, but Sylvain’s intentions came through all the same. Felix smiled in response, and the teary-eyed, half-sob Sylvain giggled was enough to get him crying too. Sylvain really thought that if he ran, Felix would not run after him. Felix was willing to follow him into the dark.

And he made this known.

“Sylvain. You broke our promise.” Felix’s voice warbled, but he did his best to keep it steady.

“No I didn’t. I’m still here, aren’t I?” 

Felix choked back a sob, surprising Sylvain and even himself. 

“I come all this...this _fucking_ way, and if you’re still going to make a joke about it—” 

“Wait wait wait, Felix, w-wait, I’m sorry!” 

Before Felix could pull away, he was pressed into Sylvain’s chest again. His grip was almost too tight, possessive. Like Felix was going to vaporize, an apparition from Sylvain’s imagination.

Felix allowed himself a few sniffles before speaking up again. “If I had come any later, then you would have done it. You would have been gone, and you would have left me here.”

The thought of coming upon Sylvain a moment too late made Felix feel lightheaded. 

“I didn’t think you were going to come. I thought you were done with me after what I did.”

Felix almost glared at Sylvain out of habit, but was met with red eyes, and chose to sit in the flowers instead, bringing Sylvain down with him by the hand. When they settled, he did not let go, and his heart beat a little faster when Sylvain did not either.

“I know I shouldn’t have left you that night, but you know I couldn’t have stayed after that.” 

Sylvain looked away, but nodded slowly after a while. 

Felix had a feeling that if Sylvain was ever going to be honest with him, the time was now.

“Sylvain, why did you kiss me?”

Felix shuffled over to where Sylvain was looking, so he couldn’t avoid looking at him. That is, until he turned his head away again.

“You said you wanted me to be happy, and even though it was such a simple thing, it struck something in me. Nobody has ever told me that, and coming from you...it was special. It felt like you wanted me, _just_ me, like the way I wanted you. 

“I said I wanted you to leave because I couldn’t bear the idea of showing you who I really am. But once you said what you did, I wanted _nothing_ but the opposite. I wasn’t thinking straight. So I fucked up. I fucked up so badly, Fe. And you left. I thought I had finally done it, and that I had lost you forever.”

 _Wanted._

The fluttering feeling in Felix’s heart came to an abrupt stop. He rolled the implication of the word over in his mind a few times. There was a lot to unpack, but the biggest thing was that Sylvain had _wanted_ Felix. There was no longer a _wants_. The word wound around his throat and dug into his skin.

“I’m not going to leave you. Ever. But…” Felix hesitated, the next words rising like bile, “knowing that you only saw me as your next fling...it destroyed me.”

Sylvain let out a shaky chuckle. “A meaningless fling couldn’t be further from what I think of you.”

It was nearly a whisper, but it rang in Felix’s ears nonetheless. He held Sylvain’s hands, bringing them to his heart.

“Whatever you think of me, it doesn’t matter. What matters right now is that you know what I think of you.”

Felix swallowed. “The way I feel about you,” he appended.

He was open, and it was up to Sylvain to meet him in the middle. 

When Sylvain squeezed his hands tighter, he knew it was okay.

“I love you. I love you, Sylvain.”

It was easier than Felix thought it would be, telling his greatest secret. It might have been because he always had this intrinsic feeling that Sylvain knew, that somehow, he’d figured it out, and just pretended everything was fine. 

Felix began to panic. Sylvain’s stare was intense, frozen in time. 

“I love you more.”

Hearing it said back was beyond Felix’s wildest dreams. Naturally, he responded with a sneer.

“What, so it’s a competition now? I love you the most, then, jackass.” 

This was not enough to keep him from crying all over again, so he tackled Sylvain before he could see his tears well up, and make fun of him for it. 

They kissed, and this time Felix made sure to do it right. 

\---

They laid in the poppies, whispering in each other’s ear beneath the light of the moon. 

“I have always loved you. I went insane from how much I loved you, sometimes, Fe. You’re everything I ever wanted.” Sylvain murmured against the shell of his ear, twirling a lock of Felix’s hair around his fingers. 

“Just because I love you doesn’t mean you can start being a sap,” Felix chortled.

“You know you love it. Just like how I love you. I love you so much, Fe. Have I told you?”

Felis groaned, and sat up, despite Sylvain’s whines.

_One more promise._

“You love me.”

“Yes. I love you, Felix.”

“Make me a promise, then.”

“Of course, anything you want.”

“Promise me, from here on out, that you will love yourself as much as you love me.”

Sylvain’s face fell almost instantaneously. The walls were closing in again.

“It’s not that easy, Fe.”

“I know. I know,” Felix held Sylvain’s face in his hands, and pressed their foreheads together. He had never been this close to anyone before, this vulnerable.

“But I need you to try. I can’t watch you break yourself into pieces anymore.”

Sylvain leaned into Felix’s hands, his skin plush. His eyes were shining again.

“I’m scared. It’s all I’ve ever known.”

“You’ve known me longer. I’ll be at your side, no matter how hard it gets.”

Sylvain sniffles, and plants a kiss on Felix’s knuckles.

“I know you’re hurting too, Fe.”

“I’m okay, most of the time, when you’re not off doing stupid—”

“ _Felix._ A promise goes both ways.” 

Felix thought about his time at the monastery. Searching every inch of the church for a black spur from a riding boot, snarling at everyone who asked him about it, everyone who offered to help. The look on Ingrid’s face when she came upon it, handing it back with nails pressed white into her palms. 

The times Dimitri begged for his approval, whether it be in the classroom, on the battlefield, or at his doorstep. The times he looked into the prince’s kind eyes and saw nothing but black.

Locking himself in his dormitory when his father showed up. Watching him leave through the window.

Sylvain’s fist raised over the corpse of his brother.

“I promise.”

Felix was willing to reach if Sylvain was there to catch him. He was ready to take this step together.

It was just one step, this newfound devotion, in the grand scheme of getting better. But in this moment, with Sylvain painted by the stars in the sky, Felix had never felt more complete.

**Author's Note:**

> title and inspiration from [this song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzAqvxcZKto) it is one of my favorites.  
> thank you for reading! this fic was a dream i had last night. happy sylvix week!  
> i am on twitter @lordfleasus


End file.
